Let’s face it. The holidays give us an excuse to toast the holidays. And while everyone loves a great bottle of wine, to me, festive means cocktails. I love the mad scientist aspect of it: nipping a swig from here or there while mixing and matching for the perfect holiday concoction, flutes bubbling over like test tubes. Maybe that’s just in my kitchen!

But when it comes to holiday cocktails, I like to keep them themed. Usually, on Thanksgiving, I mix Champagne with pomegranate juice, but I’ve just found something so much more festive. Cranberries, perfect for the season, are a wonderful pair for bright oranges. So, I tore page out of the old Cosmo handbook, and added cranberry juice and Triple Sec, an orange liqueur, to Champagne. he Triple Sec makes it taste slightly sweeter and slightly more alcoholic than Champagne on its own. Very fun. And the cranberry juice adds a sweet-tart note, and a beautiful holiday hue. Garnish with a bog-bobbing cranberry or an orange twist, and you have a fun marriage of the Cosmopolitan and the Kir Royale, plus a little something to take the edge off the relatives this holiday season. Santé! Continue reading …

Thanksgiving is nothing if not nostalgic. And the only food in the world to have nostalgia as a first ingredient is Proust’s madeleine. While holding onto Thanksgiving leftovers may seem like an unhealthy obsession with the past, think twice before throwing them out. You never know where they might come in useful.

I wrote two weeks ago in this column that I’d never seen a fresh cranberry outside of the United States. But there is one place that I’ve seen a dried cranberry: in England, where at school, my best friend used to stave off the afternoon doldrums with a dried cranberry and white chocolate cookie. That got me thinking: the tartness of cranberry is one of the few things that can rein in that over-the-top sweetness of white chocolate. What a perfect ice cream that would make, and what an unexpected Thanksgiving dessert to scoop next to a slice of pumpkin pie.

Deemed a “superfruit,” cranberries are high in antioxidants, vitamin C, dietary fiber, and manganese. Their high antioxidant levels may boost the cardiovascular and immune systems, and may even help prevent cancer; they contain a chemical that may prevent tooth decay; they may prevent kidney stones, and are beneficial against bacterial urinary tract infections and gingivitis. Frankly, I don’t see how we can get along without them.

The perfect excuse to eat them in some delicious, sweet-tart holiday ice cream.

Cranberry White Chocolate Ice Cream

serves 6

INGREDIENTS

1 12-ounce bag cranberries

1 cup granulated sugar, divided

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

Pinch fine sea salt

5 large egg yolks

4 ounces good white chocolate, cut into chunks

PROCEDURE

The night before, remember to freeze your ice cream maker bowl.

In a medium saucepot, heat the cranberries and 1/3 cup sugar on medium-high heat until the cranberries just begin to get hot. Then cover the pot and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook 10 minutes, stirring often, until the berries are burst, and softened. Transfer the berry mixture to a blender and purée. Pass the cranberry purée through a fine mesh strainer. The mixture should yield about 1 cup of smooth cranberry purée. Set aside to cool.

In a large saucepot, heat together the cream, milk, 1/3 cup sugar, and pinch of salt over medium-low heat until just scalded (bubbles will form around the edges of the cream). Meanwhile, use an electric beater to beat together the egg yolks and remaining 1/3 cup sugar, until the mixture is pale and thick.

Once the cream mixture is hot, pour about 1/3 of it into the egg yolks mixture and whisk quickly to temper the egg yolks. Pour the mixture back into the pot with the rest of the cream, and cook over low heat. Use a wooden spoon to constantly stir the custard until it is thick enough to coat the back of the wooden spoon: at about 170&deg;F. Pass the custard through a fine mesh sieve and into a large bowl. Whisk in the cranberry mixture. Cover the cranberry custard, and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Turn on your ice cream maker, and pour in the cranberry custard. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. Just before the ice cream is completely churned, add in the white chocolate chunks. Transfer to a bowl or Tupperware with a lid, and freeze for at least 4 hours. Let stand at room temperature 10 minutes before scooping and serving.

My love of turkey is only a recent development. And even at that, I only consent to eat it when it’s freshly roasted, usually on Thanksgiving. Anything else—turkey sandwiches, turkey soups, turkey whatevers—just aren’t going to happen. So I have a high sensitivity to those who want to try something other than turkey for Thanksgiving.

To me, these Quatre Épices Poussins are the perfect holiday bird. Something about Thanksgiving requires a bird, and I feel compelled to uphold that. But sometimes you want something smaller to alleviate leftover overflow in your apartment fridge, or something quick-cooking to disguise the fact that you were actually at work until two hours before your mother-in-law arrived, or something different from what you had last year. Tradition, after all, isn’t for everyone. These young chickens are holiday poultry that cook quickly, are perfect for one (you can portion it for an army or a sweet dinner for two), are entirely unique, and have tremendous stage presence.

The stage presence comes from a traditional French spice blend called quatre épices, or four spices. Consisting of cracked black pepper, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg, the blend is reminiscent of rich medieval dinners, centered around a great long table on which a roasted pig reclines, clenching an apple in its mouth. Highly spiced, and lightly spicy, it is a seasonal je ne sais quoi that makes these little crispy-skinned, succulent game birds special enough, and festive enough, for the holidays

Quatre-Epices Poussins under a Brick

serves 2

Ingredients

2 poussins, backbone removed and butterflied

Salt

2 1/2 teaspoons quatre épices (ingredients follow)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

For the Quatre Épices

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground clove

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Procedure

Make the quatre épices by combining all four spices. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Pat the poussins dry with paper towel, and season them well with salt.

Mix 2 1/2 teaspoons quatre épices with 3 tablespoons room temperature butter. Using your hands, spread the butter in a thick layer over the front side of the birds.

In a braising pan, heat the vegetable oil on medium heat. When the oil is hot, place the poussins skin side down in the pan, and weight them down with one brick well wrapped in foil. Sear for 3 to 4 minutes, then transfer to the oven.

Bake the poussins in this position, breast side down under the brick, for 30 minutes. Then remove the bricks, and roast them breast side up for 20 minutes. Then rotate them again so that they are breast side down, and replace the bricks for the final 10 minutes. The poussins will cook for 1 hour in total. Allow the poussins to rest 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Thanksgiving may be about the food, but it’s also about the company. This year, I have friends and family voyaging in from London, New York, and Miami, and they don’t expect to be fed just once. I like coming up with Thanksgiving-themed recipes for the rest of the meals. Next Friday night, I’m having a party for all my old school friends back in town with turkey sandwiches, turkey sliders, and turkey meatloaf with sweet potato chips and pumpkin ice cream pie. For breakfast, I’ll be serving this quick and easy Pumpkin-Maple Soufflé.

Normal soufflés will start with a béchamel or a pastry cream. Although they’re not strenuous, they do take effort and know-how. For this easy pared down version all you have do is whip up the egg whites, fold in the yolks, pumpkin, and maple, then bake. They rise and puff just like a “real” soufflé, but it’s much more of a cinch. The flavors of pumpkin and nutmeg are reminiscent of Thursday’s pumpkin pie, and the warm maple syrup is just so autumnal and familial at once. I pour a ton of extra warm, runny syrup over mine. So good!

Perhaps like many first generation Americans, Thanksgiving is a time to remember where we came from. What I love most about our Thanksgiving is the mix of people and places that sit around the table. We have the English-speaking contingent, and the French corner. And I’m not sure which is more thankful to be American on Thanksgiving. What I love about America is that everyone had a reason to come here. For some of my relatives it was freedom, for others it was safety, and for others it was love. No matter what the reason, they came to America to fulfill it, and they all found what they were looking for. So while they may have come here for a million different reasons, they are all thankful for one thing: to be here, in America, on Thanksgiving. And as for me, the first in my mom’s family to be born in the States, I am thankful that after so many years abroad, I am finally back home to partake in the most Franglais feast ever known to mankind: my family’s Thanksgiving.

The mighty little cranberry continues to fascinate me the more I investigate into its background. Did you know that only 5% of cranberries are sold fresh? And from my perspective, I only see that 5% from November to December. So, we need recipes that use the other 95% of harvested cranberries that are turned into juices and sauces, and, as we use them in this recipe, dried cranberries.

Everyone knows Thanksgiving is really all about the sides. I usually wind up making more sides than there are guests at my table.